


The Star to Every Wand'ring

by lotesse



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2006-04-10
Updated: 2006-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-02 17:58:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: the Pevensie children are a bit older when they board the Dawn Treader. Impossible love stories at sea, things unspoken and how the speaking changes everything. Work in Progress, on indefinite hiatus. Chapters originally posted between April 2006 and April 2007.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Compass

The sea was roaring in her ears, the salt strong in her mouth and eyes, everything around her a blur of green and blue and the dark indescribable shades of deep waters. Lucy was more than half bewildered by the tumult when the stranger grabbed at her, helping her to adjust to suddenly being over her head in the middle of the ocean. His hands - they felt like large hands - trailed along her skin for an instant as they sought a hold to help her, and a shiver ran up her spine, spiraling in her stomach. There was no time for analysis of this. She was more intent on keeping Eustace alive than anything else. But when they had been hauled on to the deck of the great beautiful ship - and oh! it felt so good to be back on a real ship, to feel the rocking-horse motion of it beneath her feet and to hear the breeze singing in the rigging - it was quite a different matter.

When they stood there coughing and dripping, when Edmund and Eustace were safe and she could think of herself again, their rescuer drew her eyes like a compass needle. She knew him, somehow - curling yellow hair darkened by the sea, a face older than she had last seen it, but still recognizable. "Caspian!" she exclaimed, a great wave of joy rolled over her, swamping her as the ocean just had, but warm and eminently welcome. It drove all thoughts of those tingling moments in the water and Caspian's hands on her skin from her mind. There were more wonderful things to be thought of than that. They were back. They had got back again, as she had almost thought they never would. This was Caspian, and this was Narnia. "Oh, Caspian!"

And Caspian it was; Caspian, the boy king of Narnia whom they had helped to set on the throne during their last visit, almost five years ago now by English time. Beside her, Edmund had recognized him as well, and was merrily clapping him on the shoulder. Caspian had grown up since the last time, though she didn't think that he looked entirely like a grown-up. Had time had passed differently in Narnia once more? How long had it been? Five years had passed in England, but of course that meant nothing. It could have been any number of years in Narnia.

Her reflections were cut off by a sneeze, and as Caspian looked up at her from his merry talk with Edmund she realized just how cold she really was. And as Eustace continued to make a fool of himself, Caspian called for spiced wine. As they drank it together Lucy thought that she had never been so happy in all her life. She had been grinning like a hatter ever since they'd been brought on board - Narnia again! - but now with the spiced wine on her tongue and the salty, watery air and Caspian's bright eyes she felt as if she would break.  
*

With a sign, Lucy curled up on the wonderfully soft, warm bunk in the stern cabin. Caspian had surrendered to her immediately, which was very kind of him, though it did rather embarrass her. It would take some time, she thought to herself, before she could get used to being Queen Lucy again, and not just the youngest of the Pevensie children, the bookish one, the plain one.

There was a porthole beside the bunk, just at eye level, through which she could see the green-gold water swirling in the wake of the transom. Her clothes hung, dripping mournfully, in one corner. They already looked more dingy and uncomfortable than anything. Even though the spare tunic of Caspian's that she was wearing was nowhere near as beautiful as her gowns had been at Cair Paravel, Narnia clothes were always much more lovely and light and silky than anything that was to be found in England. The fabric of the tunic smelled of herbs and soap, with a hint of the sea and under them a musky, woodsy, bright scent that must have been Caspian's.

The cabin itself was small and lovely and perfect, jewel-tones and carven wood and the soft smooth motion of the ship, the fresh smells of the sea and the tarry cedar smell that clings about all ships. She could see the marks of its owner all about the little room: the boots in the corner, a heap of clothing set aside for washing or mending. A horn-handled dagger on a rack near enough to the bunk for an easy reach in the dark. A book of old stories lying on one of the three low seats. The linens beneath her cheek smelled like fresh air and pine trees and salt and boy, and she breathed in deeply, savoring it.

When Caspian came in through the starboard door, she blushed deeply, as though she had been doing something secret or shameful.

"I'm sorry, I should have knocked," he said, mouth twisting. "This is your cabin now, after all. I just came to get some things." He turned away, opening one of the lockers that lined the wall and pulling several stacks of clothing into his arms.

She felt as if he was trying desperately to not really be there, to allow her a privacy that she found she didn't really wish for. Wanting to put him at his ease, she said, "Oh, Caspian, it's no trouble at all. I was just watching the sea." She smiled up at him, and again their eyes caught and held.

He broke the gaze, not looking away from her completely but still avoiding her eyes. "You've found…suitable clothes, I see? I am sorry that we do not have any woman's clothes aboard. It ill befits the dignity of a Queen to be clad so, and I offer my most abject apologies."

Something in the twinkle of his eye and the set of his expressive mouth convinced her that it was nearly all in jest, and she laughed, replying in kind. "No need for it. Your tunics are very good dresses, your majesty, though I fear that I shall have to go barefoot for a while. Unless I offend by my informality in the presence of the King of Narnia?"

"As if one of the great Queens of Old could ever be said to give offense to any personage, no matter how great. No, indeed, your majesty. You'll do very well." His eyes lingered over her again, and she felt her blush returning. The tunic, while not indecent, was a good deal shorter than Narnian dresses usually were. She was used to shorter skirts as an English schoolgirl, but this was somehow Different. She had been teasing before, but now she wondered in earnest if she should not offend.

But to Caspian she looked almost shockingly lovely. His tunic slid down off of one of her collarbones and revealed her legs, which if not long were powerful and shapely. Her loose damp hair was tumbled about her face and shoulders, longer than it had been the last time he'd seen her, though she still hadn't managed to regain the length that she'd had as a Queen for all her trying. She looked disheveled and a bit wild and a good deal more sensuous than he would have expected. Time had flowed oddly again, almost holding still for him while it sped by her. Before, he had been four years her senior. Now, she almost matched him in age.

He had thought many times of seeing the great Kings and Queens again, but he had somehow never expected Lucy to be anything but a child. He felt as if he'd forgotten the proper use of his hands and feet and tongue, but Lucy did not flinch or draw back from his scrutiny, and that at least was something. And so perhaps it was not so bad.

Both of them visibly jumped as Edmund came banging in from the deck, stomping about in the boots that he'd got from Caspian. "I say, Lu," he exclaimed, "Isn't this a jolly lark!"

He looked from the one to the other and then opened his mouth as if to speak, but shut it again. "Come up on deck, you two," he said at last, but in a very different tone of voice: quiet and reined in, with a veneer of merriment over it. Lucy smiled at him as she slipped through the door that he held for her, but he didn't return it. He was watching Caspian like a hawk. There was no enmity in his eyes, only suspicion and warning and the desire for everything to just be safe.

But Lucy, already on deck, was quite untroubled by Edmund's upset. She was in Narnia again, and on a ship, and adventuring. And if something else contributed to her utter joy as she stood in the bows looking forward with the wind in her hair, she did not know its name, nor did she think of it over-much. But when Caspian came to stand beside her and talk of things past and present, and their destination, an everything that he had been doing for the past three years, her smile could've drowned out the sunset behind them with its brilliance.

They were in for a lovely time.


	2. These Yellow Sands

Caspian thought that he never would have really seen Felimath if Lucy hadn't been with him. She was utterly enraptured: the soft turf under her bare feet, the wild smell of heather and the sea, the perfect isolation of it all. The sparse and twisted trees, the little wildflowers tangled with the gorse underfoot, the cliffs where the sea-spay flew up in fountained plumes as the waves struck against the stones. It was windy, and her hair crept from its braid to fly about her face, curling in the dampness. He had never heard anything so sweet as her laughter.


	3. Ruffian'd So Upon the Sea

Once it started, it all went so quickly. Felimath was all that she remembered, beautiful and lonely, and she had reveled in standing on Narnian soil once more. The Dawn Treader was wonderful, and entirely and wonderfully Narnian, but still. This was different. And she was there with Edmund and Reepicheep and Caspian, and it was like a lovely dream. But soon they realized that they were not alone.

At first they had spoken to the rough-looking men, and it had been scary and a bit exciting, an adventure. And then it was quite blurry: a tussle, ropes being tied around her wrists, Eustace being an ass, the sharp sting of tears as she tried to be brave, be valiant. The light on Caspian's hair as they tied him into line in front of her.

And now they were walking along in single file, bound and led. What were they going to do? What could they possibly do? They could never be sold - how would that be for an end to their adventure? She was terribly, terribly afraid, because she felt certain that this was an enemy that neither swords nor philosophy could defeat. There was a horror in her at the touch of the unshaven men who had abandoned all humanity to sell their fellow beings. She was not naïve; she had been a queen. She knew well enough that there is a dark thing in all people that will come out if not watched and chained. But nonetheless it chilled and nauseated to be brought so close to it, to feel their breath on her cheek and their hands on her wrists.

And she was afraid, too, of slavery. She had been a queen, and she knew what happened to girls who were taken slave. Edmund and Eustace would be put to work, and that would be miserable enough, but they would have no need to fear that. Reepicheep, she thought with a smile, would fight for her, but even his valiant sword would not be protection if she was bought and owned.

She could not speak to her brother or Caspian, and certainly could not say or do anything that would reveal them as royalty. No, Caspian was right, it would never do. But when, as they were hauled along to the slave ship, a tall and noble man stopped them and began to barter for Caspian, she was utterly desperate. The words bubbled up into her mouth, the words that would save them and keep them together. They had to keep together, or all would be lost! Caspian would be a sold slave, and they would not have his help in escaping. His own authority might be worth something, but theirs would not be. Anyone they told would laugh at them, or only look blank.

But he silenced her with a look, and went off into bondage with no more than a cheery look and a brave word. He did not meet her eyes as he said farewell with a hysterical merriment, and she was even more downcast by that than by his loss, though she was not sure why and it was like as not nothing but foolishness. But the day seemed overcast and gloomy without him, and Lucy found that she didn't have the heart to struggle as Pug and his slavers pulled her down into the belly of their ship to take them to Narrowhaven and the markets. There was nothing that she could do now but wait and hope.


	4. Your Mind is Tossing (on the Ocean)

The hall was bright with fire and merry conversation. Caspian's arrival to the Islands was cause for great celebration among the Lord Bern's friends and followers, and they were all These men had tried for many years to mend the copious errors of Gumpas' misrule, and now they saw real hope for progress. But after he had eaten of the savory meat and fresh bread that the good Lord had brought to the table, Caspian had no desire to remain in that warm and golden space. There was, however, a balcony looking out over the city that adjoined the room, and there he stood, leaning on the balustrade and watching the darkness fall. Lines of tension ran through his body, but he was as still as a man carved from stone.

Bern was in no way blind to this. He had watched the young king closely all that day, watching the marks of his father that the boy unknowingly carried and marveling at the kinglyness that he had never before seen in one so young. Caspian was like his father, true, but Caspian the Ninth had never looked so truly like a sovereign as this lad. The father had been prickly, high-minded, and not an easy man to love though he held men's love well when he had gained it. But this young king Bern had loved instantly and effortlessly, and the boy's obvious trouble troubled him greatly in turn.

After a time, when Caspian stood still at the arch and did not move or return, Bern went softly to his side. Silently he lay a hand on the wrought-iron railing in the king's line of sight, allowing him awareness of another presence. Caspian saw it and turned, and his face was anxious and far-looking. "My Lord Bern," he said, "am I needed within?"

Bern smiled. "No, my liege. But I felt that I might be needed without."

The young king laughed, but it was a harsh laugh, strung tight as a harp string and near to breaking. "Well said, my lord, though I do not know what you can do."

Placing a hand on Caspian's tensed shoulder, Bern decided to abandon courtly diplomacy. The boy needed to talk, that much was clear, and Bern would have the trouble out of him. He knew what it was, or near enough. "You are in love with that little lady, who is still with your other companions under the care of Pug. Is that not what troubles you?"

Caspain laughed again, sobbing in his indrawn breath, and hung his head. "Yes, though I had not entirely known it until now."

"And this grieves you, your majesty? It should be joyous."

"Truly, it does grieve me. I cannot see how this can possibly end well."

"My king, if you fear her refusal then I fear that you are blind. Even I could see it in her, and I can well guess what her answer would be. You are not an ill-suited man, to fear being denied by maids."

Caspian looked up at him, and it was a weighing look. The he nodded, short and sharp, having come to a decision. "Yes, I can tell you everything; you will not be indiscreet. Do you have any idea who she is?"

"You called her Lucy, back on Felimath."

Caspian turned away and leaned out over the balcony, looking out into the distance. "Yes. Queen Lucy of Narnia."

Bern's brow creased in puzzlement. "Queen? Then you are already wed?"

"No, we are not wed. She has only been with us for a few weeks, though we have met before." He smiled, and some of the cares left his face. "My Lord Bern, did you ever listen to the old stories, when you were still in Narnia? About the waking trees, and fauns and dwarves and naiads and Aslan the Lion, and the ghosts down at the old ruined castle by the mouth of the Great River, by the sea?"

"I have heard them, a few times and long ago. Why?"

"And the stories of the four great kings and queens from the other world, whose reign was the Golden Age?"

"Yes."

"She is Queen Lucy the Valiant, the youngest of the four. Her brother King Edmund is with her. And all four of them came with Aslan three years ago to bring justice to Miraz and set me on the throne."

Lord Bern looked at the king in amazement, but Caspian's expression of mingled remembrance and pain could leave no doubt. The king was in earnest, and in his right wits. "You travel with the Ancient Kings? You have seen the face of Aslan?" Caspian nodded, and Bern could scarcely have been more surprised. "I had always thought that they were fairy tales, though very good and lovely ones. Clearly the world has greatly changed since last I was in Narnia, if the old legends have waked and roamed the green earth." He paused. "But, my liege, does this not make her a yet more fit consort for the King of Narnia? And yet you are still despondent. What causes this?"

Caspian traced the railing with a slow finger, slipping along its curls and vies. "I don't know why they have come here. I pulled her out of the sea some weeks ago, out of all sight of land. But you see Aslan always sends them here for a reason, and when the work is done he takes them back to their own country, where I cannot go. He sent them back after my coronation, and I heard it whispered that he told the High King and the eldest Queen that they would never be able to come back, because they were too old. And so I know that she will leave, and perhaps I will never see her again."

Lord Bern said, "But they have come again, quite soon after they last left. Surely there is no need for despair?"

Caspian spoke dreamily, as if reciting a story that he had learned by heart long ago. "Time passes differently in their world-it has been five years for them, and scarcely three here in Narnia. And when they came to my aid before only one summer had passed for them since the Golden Age. Even if she does come back again, I am likely to be dead."

His voice twisted bitterly at the last, and Bern's eyes were wide with sympathy as the young king fell silent. This was much more, much deeper, than anything that he had expected to find. But the boy was heartsick, and so he pushed is bewilderment out of the way to offer the only comfort he could.

"My liege.Caspian. We will get them freed, and soon. Tomorrow morning everything will change here, and they will be safe enough till then." He joined the king at the railing, leaning on it and looking out over the sea. "Did you know that I had a lover back in the Narnian court?" He nodded as Caspian looked up. "Yes, and I left her when Miraz banished us. She would have come with us, but I would not let her. It was no sort of life for a lady.

"I never forgot her. When I met my Nell on this Island I loved her first because she was so much like my other love, and Nell I kept and married. I love her well enough for her own sake, now, but I have never forgotten my Narnian maid. But am I not more blest to have loved her at all, though we will never meet again?"

"I did not know, my lord. I. Yes, it is better, but." Caspian's voice tangled in his confusion and he fell silent, clutching at the balustrade until his knuckles turned white. "I wish that this had never happened. I wish that they had never come."

"My boy, if you don't know how much time you will have with her, all the more reason to savor every moment of it. What does this worry profit, to you or to anyone? Now, sire, it is late, and we start soon after dawn. I at least need my rest if these old bones are to serve any man on the morrow, and you should sleep as well. Your chambers are ready for you, when you have need of them." His tone was brisk; he sensed that the King was on the edge of brooding and despair, and knew that he needed to be shaken out of his melancholy more than he needed sympathy or useless platitudes. It was very well to talk about loving and losing, but the boy was in the middle of it, and could not be expected to regard the matter with philosophy. Not yet. The sorrow had to come before.

Clapping the king on the shoulder and then kissing him lightly on the brow, the lord turned and went back into the house, dousing the fire before he went to his bed and his wife. But Caspian stood for a long time in the dark night air, looking to the sea and thinking as the wind rose up and whipped the waves to whitecaps in the channel where Pug's ship rode at anchor.


	5. From the Sea Contagious Fury

It was dark in the hold of the slave ship, and it smelled of fish and sweat and uncleaned bilges. They were fortunate to be there - all Pug's other captives were already in Narrowhaven, one step closer to the auction block. Clearly he had been selling rather than acquiring, in the general way of things, but wasn't about to pass up a windfall when it walked so blithely into his camp.

They had had the bad luck to be in a very wrong place at a very wrong time, but as Lucy thought in the silent darkness, it could have been much worse. At least they were alone in the cabin and not jammed up against masses of imprisoned humanity. Reepicheep wasn't with them; the noble mouse had been taken up to the main cabin for the amusement of the slavers, and Lucy dearly hoped that he would be all right and not do anything terribly foolish. She was more worried for him than for any of the others, except perhaps Caspian. Not knowing anything of what had happened to him after the kindly lord had taken him away, she had to try very hard not to imagine the worst.

It seemed to her that time no longer had any significance. Each moment was and then ended, uncounted an unmarked. They sat in the dim, each alone in their own thoughts - Lucy anxious, Edmund thoughtful, Eustace unreadable without light to see by. The sea between the islands lay in a dead calm, and the boat was scarcely even rocking. They could not hear any sound of the water, if indeed any sound was being made.

It was Eustace, inevitably, who ended the silence. "Well, I like this," he said, stiff and pompous. "How long are we to be kept down here like this? It's not sanitary." His words fell muffled onto the close, tarry planks, and though Lucy would rather he had not spoken at all still the silence after his voice faded was more oppressive than ever. She doubted in that terrible moment that she would ever hear any sound again.

Edmund gamely tried to break the torpid quiet again. "We're all equally unhappy, Eustace," he said, reaching for platitudes when he could find no other words. "But we'll do what we can. Caspian will get help to us, and if he cannot we'll get help to ourselves. But that lord who took him looked kindly, and I think he should fare well. He's our best hope at the moment."

Eustace sneered. "He'll be well enough, very likely. He'll waste no time in enjoying himself out there, never mind that we're stuck in this nasty little hole. It would be just his sort of trick, to take no notice of all our sufferings."

Lucy flared up out of her worry. Eustace Scrubb on top of everything else was just too much for even her usually extensive patience. "Oh shut up, Eustace," she said acidly. "You know well enough that there was nothing Caspian could have done. Besides, I'm not so sure he's any better off than we are. He's been sold, after all, and we all still have the chance to escape that." Her voice fell, and to Edmund's ears she sounded fearful and lonely underneath the snappishness.

"He'll be all right, Lu. He's no fool, and not sold to a brute," he said, taking her hand and trying to speak confidently. Lucy smiled at him through the dark, and gave the hand a grateful squeeze. They were in Narnia again, where it was all right to be sentimental sometimes.

"I know. He'll get us out, Ed, and everything will turn out," she said, just for the sake of saying something.

"And what makes you so sure of that?" Eustace said nastily, cutting the comfort like a dull knife, not brave enough to be strong for the sake of others. "Why should he bother about us enough to risk it, if he does manage to get loose? He's rich and powerful, and you think he'll want to just throw that away do you, and take the chance of being enslaved again?"

Lucy laughed, and the sound was strange in that sorrowful place. Her mind, for the first time since they had been separated from Caspian, was clear and untroubled. "As if Caspian would ever just leave us here! The idea of it, Eustace. Don't worry that he won't come. He's not like that." She tried to be kind to her cousin, as a rule. Being closest in age to Edmund had taught her something about the uses of nastiness as protection, and she had often had the impression that Eustace was cruelest when he was most afraid.

But Eustace laughed back at her. "Do you think that he'll come just for you, cousin Lucy? Do you think that he has some special wish not to leave you behind? If you do then you're a fool. You're far too plain for that sort of thing."

Edmund growled at him. "Shut you mouth, you beast."

Lucy held tight to his hand, restraining him with a touch and a word. "Oh, don't. Don't quarrel with him, that's just what he wants and you know it's all lies." The taunt caught at her and took her breath away, but it wasn't true. She'd never expect Caspian to…not for her, of all people. She was determined to ignore it. "It's all lies," she soothed her irate brother again.

"Oh is it?" crowed Eustace. "No, Lu, I don't think you'll convince him. You see, he knows better. He's seen the way Caspian looks at you, haven't you Ed?" The boy continued recklessly on, provoking his cousin as much as humanly possible. "He's a man as well, and he understands that lordly chaps like Caspian will look at plain little girls if there's nothing better to be had, but won't bother to risk slavery or imprisonment for them. Why should he? You may have your uses, Lu, but you're not worth that."

The sound of Lucy's slap resounded through the darkness, quickly followed by the sound of her angry tears, though she said nothing.

And now Edmund did fly at Eustace, grabbing him roughly and holding him down, bent double so that his nose was pressed to the foul planking. "See here, cousin," he said with dangerous emphasis, his voice cold with fury," be ware of your tongue. I am a King of Narnia, and brother to the High King of all the land. I will not tolerate threat or slander to my sister the Queen. Reepicheep has already thrashed you, and though he is not the least of my subjects in skill or valor yet still I think that you would not like to have me as your opponent, who struck the White Witch and bested Rabadash Prince of Calormen."

Eustace, whimpering, squeaked out, "Come off it, Ed. Don't be ridiculous. Stop it, stop it, or I'll tell Alberta as soon as we're back!"

"You will not insult a Queen of Narnia," Edmund thundered, taking no notice, "Or by Aslan I will prove her virtue on your body with any weapon you choose!"

A rough boot thumped against the decks above them, and a harsh voice called down, "Less noise in the hold! Lie quiet or I'll make you quiet with the business end of the lash!" Laughter broke like fine china being smashed, and there was quite a lot of noisy stomping and jeering and what sounded like one of Reep's indignant squeaks.

For a long moment everything was silent, and then Eustace said, "All right, all right. I take it back. Can't even take a joke, any of you." He sat up with an air of ill grace, like a whipped dog, but he wasn't done yet. He'd found a nerve, and he meant to make the most of it. Leaning close to his cousin's ear to pour poison in, he said in a mutter, "Would you be so angry if you didn't suspect that it was true, Ed?" Edmund's brow furrowed, but he retained his composure and said nothing. He had no wish to talk about it, not with Lucy right there and certainly not with Eustace Scrubb.

Instead he crawled over to Lucy, who was silent and pale and, he suspected, weeping a bit in the dark.

She felt like such a fool. Lucy understood her cousin, though she didn't like him, and knew why he acted the way he did. Eustace would latch on to anything if he thought it could get a rise out of someone, with no thought given to the truth of it. She knew that, but his voice had very neatly matched that of certain as-yet-unspoken fears of her own that she found it hard to laugh him off the way she normally could.

"Lucy," Edmund said gently, "Lucy don't. I don't believe it, not any of it. Eustace," he called out, imperious, "apologize to the Queen this instant."

Eustace was a great coward, and had no trouble abandoning his plans for the sake of his own self-preservation, and so he did so. He groveled enough that even Edmund was content, but it made little difference to poor Lucy. Her mind was in turmoil over the things that Eustace had said, and the way that they had struck home. She didn't expect Caspian to save them out of love for her or anything ridiculous like that, but still it had hurt dreadfully when Eustace had said that he would not. And some part of her whispered treacherously that it would be lovely it he did.

"He's not like that," Edmund told her. "You know he's not. He'll do everything he can to get us free, and we'll go back to the Dawn Treader, and once we're underway all this will be just another adventure to boast about. Caspian would never use a woman," he added in an undertone. "He has too much honour."

She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder. "I know." She said no more, but her thoughts were still tumbling over one another like fishes in a weir. Edmund had been so upset…and Eustace's remarks about plain girls stung, though she knew it was silly of her. It wasn't as if Caspian had ever been likely to fall in love with her. And it wasn't as if she had ever wanted him to. Edmund had likely just been reacting to the slur about her having some uses. There was no reason for him to be angry or worried about anything else.

They were quiet the rest of that night. Lucy fell asleep against her brother, who watched her through the gloom. Around nightfall Reepicheep was brought down to join them, and he took up a position near to the Pevensies, as if guarding them. Eustace sat by himself on the other side of the little hold, neither looking at nor speaking to his cousins.

In the night a fine wind blew up, howling through the channel and tossing the boat to and fro like a rough child with a plaything. Edmund and Lucy did not wake, but Eustace felt most abominably sick and slept very little. They were woken early the next morning and given fresh water to wash with. Pug placed the basin down in front of Lucy with a mocking bow, and then went to stand outside the door with a great show of gallantry that made Edmund mutter curses under his breath and Reepicheep put a hand to where his sword used to be, before it had been taken from him. Lucy took no real notice. Soon they were to be taken to the marketplace and sold. She could think of nothing else. Sold.

As they washed and dressed, all of their thoughts were on Caspian, in hope and in fear.


End file.
